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The Smart Home: How Consumers Craft New Service Networks by Combining Heterogeneous Smart Domestic Products

Harvey, John; Poorrezaei, Mojtaba; Woodall, Tony; Nica-Avram, Georgiana; Smith, Gavin; Ajiboye, Tolu; Kholodova, Karina; Zhu, Kai

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Authors

JOHN HARVEY John.Harvey2@nottingham.ac.uk
Associate Professor

Mojtaba Poorrezaei

Tony Woodall

GAVIN SMITH GAVIN.SMITH@NOTTINGHAM.AC.UK
Associate Professor

Tolu Ajiboye

Karina Kholodova

Kai Zhu



Abstract

Service research suggests homes are becoming increasingly connected as consumers automate and personalize new forms of service provision. Yet large-scale empirical evidence on how and why consumers automate smart domestic products is lacking. To address this knowledge gap we analyze 13905 consumer-crafted, automated combinations of smart domestic products, totalling 1,144,094 installations, across 253 separate service providers on the Web service IFTTT.com. An exploratory network analysis examines the topology of the network and an interpretive coding exercise reveals how consumers craft different styles of human-computer interaction to co-create value. The results reveal the smart domestic product network is disassortative, imbalanced, has a long-tailed degree distribution, and that popular services have high centrality across all product category combinations. We show that popular combinations of smart domestic products are primarily motivated by utilitarian value seeking enacted through a preference for automated tasks outside of conscious attention, though more individualistic combinations are slightly more likely to be hedonistically inclined. We conclude by showing how these consumer-crafted forms of service provision within domestic environments reveal design redundancy and opportunities for service innovation.

Citation

Harvey, J., Poorrezaei, M., Woodall, T., Nica-Avram, G., Smith, G., Ajiboye, T., …Zhu, K. (2020). The Smart Home: How Consumers Craft New Service Networks by Combining Heterogeneous Smart Domestic Products. Journal of Service Research, 23(4), 504-526. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094670520929095

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 31, 2020
Online Publication Date Jun 3, 2020
Publication Date Nov 1, 2020
Deposit Date Apr 20, 2020
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Journal of Service Research
Print ISSN 1094-6705
Electronic ISSN 1552-7379
Publisher SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 23
Issue 4
Pages 504-526
DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/1094670520929095
Keywords Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management; Sociology and Political Science; Information Systems
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4318458
Publisher URL https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1094670520929095

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